


took my heart (I think she took my soul)

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Episode: s02e10 What They Become
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26859331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Grant wakes up after San Juan. More has changed than he bargained for.
Relationships: Kara Lynn Palamas/Grant Ward
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	took my heart (I think she took my soul)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kings of Leon's "Closer"

The stillness surrounding Grant is understandable—he _was_ just sleeping, after all—but he’s been at this long enough to recognize the difference between normal, respectful stillness and the more unnatural kind.

He doesn’t let himself tense up. His heart doesn’t even race. He puts all his sudden anxiety and nerves into the simple, slow motion of his head lolling to one side.

That hurts. Nothing so sharp it should wake him up completely (so he keeps on feigning sleep) but there’s a crick in his neck that’s from more than just the stiff surface he's laying on.

Knuckles and nails brush his cheek. A woman. He lets himself dream briefly that it’s Skye-

And that’s how it all comes back to him.

Taking her off the Bus, San Juan, her father, and the three shots she took at him while his back was turned.

“You can stop pretending,” 33 says. Her voice has lost some of that roughness he’s used to. It’s almost pleasant now. Her fingertips press into his temples, massaging away discomfort he didn’t even know he was feeling. “I know you’re awake,” she whispers over him.

He opens his eyes on her smiling face.

“There you are,” she says, flashing her fangs at him.

He thinks he might know where that pain in his neck came from.

“What happened?” he asks. He wants to feel for his side, see how bad it is, but he’s aware he’s in the presence of a predator. The risk of breaking open a scab and sending the scent of his own blood into the air is too high. So he remains still, watching her, letting her touch him and play with him so he’ll have a better chance of catching her off guard later.

33 moves away, her fingers trailing from his face to his shoulder and down his arm, sending cold shocks along his nerves as she goes. His breathing goes ragged. Whether that’s from anxiety as she nears his wound or something else, he can examine when he’s _not_ in immediate danger of being eaten alive.

“Whitehall died. You promised you would help me figure out what to do.”

Right. He remembers that. Kind of.

(His side had been torn open; he was a little preoccupied with the blinding agony.)

But it makes sense. With her sire dead, she’d be confused—especially given how tight that sire kept her chained. Offering to give her some stability is exactly the play Grant can see himself making in that situation.

“You slept for so long,” she goes on. She’s passed right by his wound, moving down to his legs and around his feet to come up his other side. “I found a healer-” She nods to a corner of the room and he lifts his head to look. He can just see, through the legs of a table piled with a witch’s herbs and tools, a crumpled mess of clothes and hair that he guesses is a body.

33 rests her hand over his chest. It’s cold and heavy—the hand … and the chest.

He breathes in deep, feeling his lungs expand, searching for a flutter, a feeling, a fucking _pulse_.

She smiles, wide and pleased, seeing he’s figuring it out.

“You turned me,” he accuses.

He’s dead. _Un_ dead. He’s a _vampire_.

It’s always a danger—for agents as much as for civilians. Where one are just plain vulnerable, the other throw themselves into the path of vampires and werewolves and every other supernatural plague species on a regular basis. There were warnings about it at the Academy. Professors and senior agents were always saying that while there are, admittedly, benefits—Grant’s current state of living(-ish) being one of them—they’re far outweighed by the drawbacks.

Even John never entertained the thought. As desperate as he got, he never so much as _considered_ this.

If a necromancer wouldn’t go there, Grant knows those drawbacks have gotta be big.

“You said you would help me,” she says again.

“So you _killed_ me?”

Her smile disappears. “You were dying,” she says coldly. “I _saved_ you. And now I’ll take care of you the way Dr. Whitehall took care of me.”

Yeah, he remembers how that psycho “took care” of her. Grant’s seen all kinds of sire-childe relationships in his time. Ones that didn’t give a fuck, ones that kept their children as slaves to hunt and work for them. Whitehall was something else. 

“You’re mine now,” she says, like she’s given him a gift. She lifts her hand, twisting it to curl her fingers in a motion that beckons him to sit up.

And he does. Without thinking, before he even means to, he’s sitting up on the edge of the table so he can face her directly.

Whitehall used to do this to her. Just a gesture from him would cut her off mid-sentence or spur her to motion, as if her body was simply another limb for him to control. It was unsettling then.

It’s fucking terrifying now.

Grant’s made a career out of self-control. He’s built his body up into a weapon for _his_ use, not for Whitehall’s abandoned pet to toy with while she goes on some self-discovery journey or whatever.

He can feel his anger rising and reaches for the familiar burn the berserker staff left in him, eager for its comfort. But it isn’t there. He’s corpse cold, no fire can burn in him now.

33’s pleased with herself, that much is obvious. She practically vibrates with it while she looks him over. “No pain?” she asks, eyes on his side. She lifts his shirt, examining the healed skin for herself. When she does, the stale smell of his own dried blood wafts through the air. It should make him queasy, knowing it’s his. And his gut does roil, but not from nausea.

He’s _starving_.

“Oh.” She rests her cold palm over his cold side as his stomach rumbles. “Are you hungry, baby?”

He wants to snap at her that he’s not her baby, but he can’t make the words come out around the breath that hisses through his teeth. He covers her hand with his, pressing it closer.

The hunger crowds his reason, threatening to push it aside so his wants can rule him. In that way, it’s almost like the staff. The familiarity there eases his anxiety, drawing him in, making it easy to sink into his own hunger. He can see now why so many newly turned vampires go feral when their sires don’t stick around to control them.

But he’s ridden this kind of demon before. Like rage, hunger is fluid. It can be for sustenance—and he definitely wants that—but it can also be for other things.

The sorts of things he wanted from Skye—still wants, more than ever, enough he doesn’t care who he gets them from anymore so long as he can have them.

And the sorts of things he can see 33 hungering for.

She wants to belong. She wanted it from Whitehall and she wants it now from Grant. She may be his sire and that may give her power over him, but all he’s gotta do is get a little more power over her. Just enough to stay ahead.

“Very,” he says and reaches out, wrapping his hand around her waist to tug her close. She falls into him readily. He can feel the shape of his own fangs against his tongue. There’s blood still in her teeth. He wonders if it’s his or the witch’s and, as it hits his taste-buds and sends a fresh surge of aching hunger through him, decides he doesn’t much care.

He stands and lifts her, his hands on her ass, pressing her to him while she squirms and laying her down on the table beneath him. Her nails tear at his skin, opening wounds that heal before the blood flows. She pants and moans and screams for him. She calls him _baby_ and tells him _there_ , _right there_ , and _more_. And maybe he does what she says but _he’s_ the one on top, _he’s_ the one who’s riding her, and she never cries prettier than when he’s acting on his own free will. She’ll remember that.

(He hopes he doesn’t remember how much he enjoys the feeling of her will working through him, how it makes him feel closer to her, almost like he’s a part of her, and how he hungers for more.)


End file.
